‘Ready yet?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘Okay. You win.’

Dumpy picked up the box. ‘You were right,’ he said to Rumpelstiltskin. ‘A wimp.’ He slid back the lid and shook the tiny man out into the palm of his hand. ‘You want the job or not?’ he asked.

‘Do I have a choice?’

‘Nope.’

‘Persuasive bastard, aren’t you?’

Dumpy smiled. ‘Guess it’s my naive charm,’ he replied. ‘Welcome aboard.’

‘Do you trust that man?’ Sis demanded as they squelched out of the swamp into the trees.

‘Depends,’ the wicked queen replied, ‘on what you mean by trust. If you mean, am I sure I know what he’ll do next, then yes. And that’s all that matters, surely.’

The forest floor was carpeted with fallen leaves, which stuck like wallpaper to the portions of portable swamp they had on the soles of their shoes. It was also getting dark. Sis shivered, not entirely because of the slight chill in the evening air. ‘This is probably a silly question,’ she said, ‘but do you know the way home?’

The queen shrugged. ‘Depends on what you mean by know,’ she replied. ‘I can navigate pretty well by narrative patterns, but my geography’s lousy.’

‘Don’t you ever give a straight answer to a simple question?’

‘Depends what you mean by straight.’

Sis sighed wearily. Her legs were painfully tired and what she wanted more than anything else was a nice hot, foamy bath, but she was realistic enough to recognise that her chances of finding one in this context were roughly those of winning the lottery without actually buying a ticket. So, as much to take her mind off her poor feet as from any desire for knowledge, she asked the queen what she meant by navigating by narrative patterns.

‘Easy,’ the queen replied. ‘As I said, in this neck of the woods, things — adventures, that kind of stuff — happen so reliably and regularly that you can navigate by them. Or at least,’ she added wistfully, ‘you could if the system was working. For example, by now we should have run into one crooked old man handing out magic wishing-pennies, three old crones gathering firewood who’d have told us what comes next in the story, at least two lots of highway robbers and a unicorn. So if we’d wanted to give directions to someone following us, we’d have said something like straight on past the old man, at the third crone turn left till you come to the second bandits, then follow your nose till you reach the unicorn, then sharp right and you can’t miss it. The joy of it is,’ she added, ‘you can tell the time as well as work out where you are. You know, if that’s the lion with a thorn in its paw, it’s got to be 12.07.’

Sis shivered. ‘Lion?’ she asked apprehensively.

The queen smiled. ‘Not in this part of the forest. Just wolves.’

‘Wolves,’ Sis repeated; as if on cue, the air was torn by a long, faraway howl. Sis squeaked and hopped up in the air.

‘Relax,’ the wicked queen told her. ‘No wolves in this part of the story.’

Sis nipped smartly in front of the queen, then turned and pointed. ‘What’s that, then?’ she asked. ‘A copy-editing mistake? Lousy spelling?’

Sure enough, half hidden behind a tree some fifty yards away stood a large, slate-grey wolf, with small red eyes and a collection of teeth worth a five-figure sum to a tooth fairy. The queen gave it an unconcerned glance and nodded slightly. ‘It’s all right,’ she whispered to Sis as the wolf nodded back, ‘one of ours.’

‘Really?’ Sis muttered nervously. ‘How can you tell?’

‘I’ll show you an easy test.’ She held out her hands. ‘Count those,’ she said.

‘Two.’

‘That’s how you know it’s one of ours.’

Sis nodded. Logical. Depends on what you mean by logic. ‘So what do we do now? Go back to the palace and wait, like he said?’

‘Not on your life,’ the queen replied, unhooking a bramble from her sleeve. ‘That’s the last thing we want to do.’

‘Oh?’

‘Believe me.’

‘And why’s that? No, let me guess. Narrative patterns.’

The queen half nodded her head. ‘Narrative patterns have got something to do with it, admittedly. Mostly, though, it’s because by now the whole palace’ll be twelve feet deep in soapsuds. Or had you forgotten?’

Sis bit her lip. ‘All right,’ she conceded. ‘But what are you going to do about that? Does this mean we’re on our way to whatever passes for an estate agent in these parts to look for somewhere else for you to live?’

The wicked queen shook her head. ‘Of course not,’ she replied. ‘As soon as the system’s back on line I’ll be able to deal with that sorcerer’s apprentice thing and that’ll be that, except for a few tidemarks in the curtains. Life goes on, you know, even in make-believe.’

‘So what are we going to do?’ Sis demanded. ‘Just wander round in circles in this horrid wood until we bump into a wolf that isn’t one of ours? I thought taking the bucket to your accountant was meant to solve something.’

‘That remains to be seen,’ the wicked queen replied absently. ‘The trouble with you is, you’re all linear.’

‘Uh?’ Sis scowled. ‘Is that an insult or a compliment?’

‘As in linear as two short planks,’ the queen explained. ‘You think in straight lines, instead of graceful curves. That’s not going to get you very far, I’m afraid.’

‘Huh.’ Sis pouted. ‘I’d rather be linear as two short planks than curved as a hatter.’

They had reached a small clearing, and for the first time in what seemed like ages, Sis could see a patch of blue sky between the branches of the trees. ‘Where’s this?’ she asked. ‘Don’t tell me, it’s somewhere narrative.’

The queen nodded. ‘You’re getting the hang of this,’ she replied. ‘If I’ve got my bearings right, this is a brief but significant adventure which ought to bring us out on the main narrative drag. Sort of a short-cut.’ She peered round, obviously looking for something. ‘Which with any luck’ll save us at least two unnecessary plot developments and a couple of setbacks. Tell me if you spot anything that looks like a humble cottage, will you?’

Sis was about to say that she’d be hard put to it to miss something like that when she realised that she was staring at a small, picturesque house at the far end of the clearing. Ludicrous to say that it hadn’t been there a moment ago, because unless it was built on the back of a Howard Hughes among tortoises, it didn’t look capable of scurrying about the place. She just hadn’t noticed it, that was all.

‘You mean like that one?’ she said.

‘Just the ticket,’ the queen replied cheerfully. ‘Now then, let’s just hope this works.’

Immediately, Sis felt hairs on the back of her neck standing to attention. ‘What if it doesn’t?’ she asked.

‘We get eaten. Come on, don’t dawdle.’

When they reached the cottage the queen knocked at the white-painted front door, counted out loud up to twenty, pushed the door and went in. Apparently, nobody in this neighbourhood locked their doors; possibly, Sis speculated, for the same reason that spiders don’t lock their webs. As soon as her eyes had become accustomed to the light, she looked round.

‘Oh no,’ she said, backing away. ‘Don’t say we’re where I think we are.’

Three chairs: one big, one middling, one small. On the table, three wooden bowls (ditto), three wooden spoons (ditto), three mugs (ditto).

‘Upstairs,’ Sis whispered. ‘Three beds?’

‘Large, medium and small,’ the queen confirmed. ‘We’re in luck.’

‘Yes, but what sort? It comes in two kinds, remember. In luck up to our necks is the way I’d describe it.’

‘Don’t be such a misery,’ the queen replied. ‘My old master the sorcerer used to say that a problem’s nothing but an opportunity wearing a funny hat, and inside every disaster there’s a triumph struggling to get out.’ She smiled nostalgically. ‘Full of stuff like that, he was.’

‘Quite,’ Sis replied darkly. ‘Full of it sounds about right. You never did say what happened to him in the end.’